Shops in 2 Dutch cities start selling legally grown cannabis in an experiment to regulate pot trade
A paradox at the heart of the Netherlands’ permissive pot policy has gone up in smoke in two Dutch cities as “coffeeshops” began selling the country’s first legally cultivated cannabis
BREDA, Netherlands (AP) — A paradox at the heart of the Netherlands' permissive pot policy went up in smoke Friday in two Dutch cities as “coffeeshops” began selling the country's first legally cultivated cannabis as part of an experiment to regulate the trade.
The experiment could mark the beginning of the end for a long-standing legal anomaly — you can buy and sell small amounts of weed without fear of prosecution in the Netherlands, but growing it commercially remains illegal.
“This is really a very, very big step in the right direction,” Derrick Bergman, chairman of the Union for the Abolition of Cannabis Prohibition, said as he sat in the De Baron cannabis cafe in the southern Dutch city of Breda.
Dutch Health Minister Ernst Kuipers visited earlier to launch the new policy. The plan for the experiment dates back to 2017 and is seen as as a way of providing “quality-controlled" weed to coffeeshops — places that are allowed to sell marijuana — and shutting out illegal growers.
